The Heat saw Jesse turning up both the temperature and the volume while retaining the potent rough-edged intimacy of his songs. Enter a more layered approach and LOTS of electric guitar.

Today Jesse reflects on the record thus: “After my first solo record I wanted to write less about myself and more about others. The record was mostly written on the road: While my friends back home were getting married and having kids I was at the Columbia hotel waiting for the bar to open. open. Ryan Adams played some the sickest guitar all over the album and came up with the title a month later, lying in a hospital bed with a badly broken arm after falling seven foot off the stage in Liverpool. The cover was shot in the one of the last dirt bag, pay-by-the-hour hotels in Times Square (I wouldn’t sit on the bed, there was bloodstained carpet and a cigarette burned headboard…to keep it real!)

Recorded in late 2003 – an extrordinary year for Malin, riding high off the reception to The Fine Art Of Self-Destruction, he returned to Britain several times and the year ended with him playing three nights with Bruce Springsteen.